Rakshasa

[Unrulyevil5]

I actually managed to capture a rakashasa in my soul crystal; It took me several tries but I succeeded in the end. You need a level 25 mage minimum to do this and it will take a few tries but you'll get it eventually.

[Callie]

Interesting. I had thought they were completely immune to the capture soul spell.

[Lilith]

Nope. Only monsters of the Special type and monsters greater than one square in size are completely immune to Capture Soul, although monsters above level 30 or so are so resistant that it's not worth trying.

[Celtic Minstrel]

The "Special type" means unique monsters like Carol, Erika, or Rentar-Ihrno, right?

[Alorael at Large]

No, they can be captured too.

 

—Alorael, who isn't sure what's a special monster in E3. He only knows it from BoE.

[Unrulyevil5]

No they aren't immune but it took me like 15 tries to capture it although it was worth the effort because they will absorb any spell you throw at them except for wound and shockwave and they have a paralyzing touch so it's a great monster to have in your soul crystal

[Unrulyevil5]

So Erika the most powerful mage in exile can be captured in a soul crystal

[Celtic Minstrel]

I'd say that's a bug.

[Lilith]

I've heard from people who claimed to be able to capture Erika or Rentar in a soul crystal. I've never done it myself.

 

Creatures that split when hit, like doomguards, are also completely immune to Capture Soul, by the way. (This is a good thing, because if a friendly creature splits, the new creature created by splitting will be hostile!)

[Unrulyevil5]

I don't know why a friendly doomguard would suddenly become hostile when hit. If it was on your side in the first place then why would it just attack you when struck? I don't understand

[Alorael at Large]

Why? It has no effect on Erika herself. She's powerful, but simulacrum isn't all that great a spell no matter what you put in your soul crystal. It doesn't break the game and there's no plot reason to forbid it.

 

—Alorael, who could see making Rentar-Ihrno resistant to having her simulacrum used against her. In the end, though, it's just not significant enough to matter.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Unrulyevil5

I don't know why a friendly doomguard would be suddenly hostile when hit. If it was on your side in first place then why would it just attack you when it is hit? I don't understand

It's a bug. Basically, the game doesn't ever expect you to have splitting creatures on your side in combat, so split creatures are generated as hostile without checking the friendly/hostile status of the original.

[Alorael at Large]

The original doesn't turn hostile. Every new monster generated needs to have its combat personality set, and monsters created by splitting are set to be hostile.

 

—Alorael, who assumes that this is because splitting sets the creature to the default hostility. If you make a townsperson split on hit and hit it, do you get hostile townspeople?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

However, this happens even if you don't hit it, for instance if you have a friendly doomguard and a hostile monster attacks it.

[The Mystic]

Once upon a time in the BoE scenario editor, I set a Doomguard to "friendly" personality for some type of combat. Then when I played, the split-off Doomguards were hostile.

[Lilith]

More precisely, split creatures are always Hostile Type A, regardless of the default and non-default AI settings of the original. The BoE Arena folks did some testing on this when we were trying to balance Splits When Hit as an ability for arena monsters; it ended up being impossible for precisely this reason.

[Alorael at Large]

You could presumably get through combat with only one splitting participant by having it be the Hostile A, but that would be problematic with two splitters. I'm sure that was considered, and it's years too late anyway.

 

—Alorael, who actually could see that being useful in the right situation. If you have to defend an ally so he doesn't split into hostile versions of himself it could go well. The problems, of course, come down to lack of scripting, terrible AI, and the balance of an ally who needs to be hittable but also scary when split.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Invisible until in motion

You could presumably get through combat with only one splitting participant by having it be the Hostile A, but that would be problematic with two splitters. I'm sure that was considered, and it's years too late anyway.

Yes, that was the sticking point. We did allow it in one special tournament between seasons, under the rule that if two splitting monsters faced each other, both abilities would cancel each other out.

[Callie]

BoA improved upon it at least: you can have doomguards which split into their appropriate hostile type (though pitting doomguards against each other is a bit boring, and my old computer doesn't have a lot of memory or processing power or whatever is involved).